December 30th, 2006

Yesterday was a very holy day. Holy day in the sense that, the “Doors of Heaven”, in other Sorga Vaasal, is opened in every temple. Since I had not gone to the temple in morning, my mom told me not to eat anything outside. As luck would have it, after a whole 7 months, my college mates were having a get-together. Meeting the very guys who made all the fun possible at college is awesome! It was very nice time remembering all those tricks and teases we were doing back then.

Soon, it was time for lunch and we all headed to pizza hut. Ignoring my mom’s warning, I binged on 2 pizzas, some garlic breads and some drinks. 2 reasons why I couldn’t resist it.1. I love pizzas and garlic bread. Yes, it is junk food, but spoiling yourself rarely is fun :).2. When you are a group, you don’t want to act like a stupid dork. I don’t think eating a pizza is wrong in this day. But somehow, my mind couldn’t accept the act.

Getting back home, I thought point number 2 will be kept a secret. But somehow, I got so frustrated that, I woke her up from her afternoon siesta and told that I binged on 2 pizzas and garlic bread. She was surprised for a second… raising her eye brows, then she said “ok, get lost” and smiled. Well, I was happy beyond measure. Telling the truth lightened my heart so much that I was literally flying. I went to the balcony to enjoy the pleasing evening sun, which was caressing my face and arms, telling that everything is alright!

December 25th, 2006

Hi guys, there is a famous plugin called “Sessionsaver” that lets you to save the current tabs open in firefox, so that, when you open firefox next time, all the previously tabs are preserved. I discovered a patch for Sessionsaver for firefox 2.0. Get it from http://wolcano.platon.sk/sessionsaver/.

By the way, I’m still bewildered as to why this basic feature is not implemented in firefox yet.

December 22nd, 2006

Hmm… I’m depressed!! Here’s why.

After working for about 2 continuous hours, you get up to get some water from the water dispenser. Things get interesting after this. Apparently, one of my friends also comes and want to get some water. Due to sore throat, that person (referred as ‘XYZ’ hereafter) wants hot water. Unfortunately, the water dispenser is not connected to the plug point. Thoroughly astonished, XYZ picks up the wire and tries to connect it to a wall-mounted LAN socket point, which has 3 points similar to a plug-point so that 3 computers can be wired for LAN access.

XYZ tried to follow “Try and try till you succeed” and ultimately called me and told that the plug couldn’t be connected, all the while pointing to the LAN socket. I was ROTFL and got pushed to the level of becoming a crack! heheh! when one of my another friends came at the right time and saved me.

XYZ is a so-called computer engineer and as I had guessed correctly, XYZ is an Anna University student. Stay tuned for more such adventures.

December 22nd, 2006

The people at badvista.org are soooooo jobless that they are writing idiotic posts about why Windows Vista is bad. Even worse are comments. I’m feeling ashamed that FSF (Free Software Foundation) is hosting such a site. There is more. There is a site called ie7.com and another one msfirefox.com.

All these dumb idiotic websites tell only one thing. Windows Vista is going to be a huge hit among end users and IE7, bigger than that.

December 18th, 2006

Buying a fair enough mobile at a decent rate was one of the best things that happened to me since “thayir sadham” (curd rice) and “avakai oorga” (a South Indian mango pickle) :-). Today I activated GPRS and BOOM!!, a world of beautiful internet connectivity opened up. It was like moving from a pre-telephonic era to a modern era. It was like inhaling the fragrance of fresh flowers. Being connected is a boon.

I downloaded Opera Mini and Gmail for mobiles. Both are excellent pieces of software. I had been using the desktop version of Opera since a long time. The mobile version is superb. Speed is very good. The pages are rendering very well. The best feature of opera mini is the status bar. You have to see it to believe why it’s so cool. It also has a feature for reading and subscribing to feeds. Overall, it’s been a very satisfying experience.

Gmail for mobiles is amazing as well. Just as the web client is satisfying, gmail for mobile even goes a step forward. It brings the same web interface to the small screen. Gmail on the web has keyboard shortcuts. Even the mobile version has this. You can press the various numbers to activate certain menu items. For e.g. pressing ‘4’ activates the reply screen. ‘*’ key is used to ‘star’ a message. What’s more, you can view attachments right from the app itself. Nearly every feature of the web version is available in the mobile version.

Getjar.com is a superb site that has a very good collection of mobile applications for almost all models of mobiles. Check it out. If the GPRS rates come down a little bit, I would definitely go for a regular connection and ofcourse a better mobile with a bigger and better screen.

December 17th, 2006

Hey guys, after quite a long time, assume about 3 years, I have cleaned my small room over this weekend… much to the surprise of my mom ofcourse ;-). It took about 5 hours of day one and another 3 hours of day two to complete it in all glory. Next on line is my blog, which wasn’t touched except for doing new posts. Have to get a nice new template soon. Any suggestions?

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Java SE 6 is out. The whole Java community is gaga over it. Netbeans 5.5 now supports Java SE 6 also. Reading this yesterday, I feel Sun is committed to not making that mistake. The next Sun Tech Days event is happening at Hyderabad on 21-23 Feb 2007. The talks look promising and the topics they pick everytime are exciting. They have also added a Java ME day this time. If you are a java freek, DON’T miss this event. Register.

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Proto has been going on great. The website now sports a new dress skin. If you are a startup company willing to showcase your product at Proto, nominate yourself. The nomination closes on 20th Dec 2006. Registration for other participants will be open soon. So, hang on! Read the Proto blog for more information.

December 5th, 2006

I just woke up today morning at about 4.45 AM. As usual, I was dreaming of something. I was about to forget it when I had to reinforce myself to be fully awake and keep recollecting it until it remained stable in my mind. Then I was off to another round of peaceful dreamless sleep.

Anyway, the dream was about this killer combination of being a young entrepreuner/student, unmarried, lots of cash, a very good friend circle and no family pressures. You can’t beat that. Hope I become like that one day….. soon!!!

November 19th, 2006

I was chatting with a few of my friends. They are placed in different companies and are doing different things. As usual with any chat after a long time, I happened to ask them, “Hi da.. long time no see, how’s your job? Like it?”. The replies were like, “Umm.. yeah sorta..”, “edho podhu da” (meaning – sort of fine). Some were frank enough to tell that they didn’t like what they were doing, which brings me to the question that why do people don’t do what they like?

The first answer to figuring out a good way is to first find out what you like. It’s possible that you may be in a deadlock situation with the Q and A but if you take enough steps to actually answer that Q, then you know what you want.

The second answer is to get some early hands-on experience on different areas of interest. That way you can always try and fail and find your true love. The best time to do this is when you are in college and parents are always available for support and money.

The third answer is better late than never. Always have the quest for knowledge and one day you have that enlightening.

The fourth answer is to be as practical as possible in your approach to your problems. For e.g. you may not like the work you do now. But you wouldn’t want to go and shout at your boss for the peanuts of silly work you are being given. Instead, be patient and tell them your strengths and why you would be able to do the other job better than the current one.

Why this post? A major part of our life is going to be around the work we do and if we don’t like love the work we do, we are wasting a beautiful life. I have found what I love and since some days, I have been taking steps to do it the first thing every morning, otherwise it keeps getting postponed.

November 11th, 2006

WOW!!! what a speech that was! it was a speech given by Steve Jobs to the new graduates of Stanford University last year. This speech is very very inspiring. I know what I love. All it takes is just that little brave decision. Read this.

October 30th, 2006

At a time when its raining so heavily these days…. at a time when our shirts and trousers take days to dry away…. and at a time when we even have to press our underwears with hot iron to dry them up… and also at a time when roads are water logged, one must necessarily be covered from head to toe with the best of raincoats so that you don’t get soaked up.

So what happened today was that I was ambling my bike slowly through the traffic at a signal. The place was flooded and I had to move beyond the stop line. The signal fell green… me being pissed off at the very little road space available, accelerated the bike to the full possible speed and ran whooosh!! over the water. People next to me were completely drenched. Most notable was a lady, riding pillion, who had no kind of raincoat on her. She got wet from top to bottom. Her husband got angry on me and what followed was a bike race he he he… !!!

The main problem during rainy seasons is that, water gets logged at some places and driving over them creates some nuisanse. But what if the water doesn’t recede from the center of the road? There is no other option but to drive over them. There is no point in shouting at the riders driving over the water. For that point, even I got drenched yesterday and since I was wearing a rain coat, I escaped 😉